PEOPLES’ Democratic Party (HDP) spokeswoman Ebru Gunay warned today that “Turkey is turning into a big prison for all its people,” as hunger strikers entered their 15th day of action.

Ms Gunay said that those taking part in the hunger strikes, including prominent Kurdish politician Sebahat Tuncel, were doing so for the sake of democracy.

The action was started in opposition to the continued isolation of jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and other human-rights violations of the Turkish state.

“Their demands are our demands,” Ms Gunay told a press conference in the capital Ankara today, as she appealed to the international community not to ignore their plight.

“We are going through a period in which universal human rights are ignored, violated; people are thrown from helicopters; politicians, journalists and intellectuals are arrested, cemeteries are destroyed, and the bodies of their children are sent to mothers by cargo,” she said.

More than 16,000 HDP members and supporters have been detained since 2015, Ms Gunay said, and the “political genocide” against Turkey’s only meaningful opposition party extends to hundreds of elected officials, including its former leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.

“We say exactly this: that our friends and party members are being held hostage by the political decisions of the palace [of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan], not by judicial decisions.”

Directing her speech towards the state, she added: “We also say, despite you, that we will open the way for the liberation of our friends and for society to get rid of you with our struggle. Despite you, we will liberate this country.”

She said that thousands in prison “for their thoughts” were opposing state policies by taking part in hunger strikes.  

More than 7,000 joined a previous hunger strike led by former HDP MP Leyla Guven, which ended in May 2019.